Irène Hill began her career as a lecturer in French studies. Over time, this has morphed into a lot of different programmes and currently, she is a lecturer in modern languages, with translation at Oxford Brookes University.
Irène is also the programme lead for modern languages and a longstanding virtual exchange enthusiast.
VE as a way to enhance employability
Her particular focus is on the area of future employability.
“It’s part of the benchmark nowadays for a modern language degree. But I think it’s the case for any degree these days, to be honest.”
She subsequently created a module focused on employability.
Her virtual exchange is an interdisciplinary one, bringing her language students together with students in Algeria. The VE was integrated into an existing course entitled ‘Cultural Competence for the World of Work.’ This collaborative project all began during Covid when Irène used the time to develop it extensively.
Turning to Tech during challenging times
“We were looking at how technology could during this difficult time. I was also attending a training by UNICollaboration at the same time and which helped clarify my thinking. As a result, I met a partner in Algeria and realised how exciting it would be to link up. I was also thinking about extending it beyond the students I was teaching French to, and also included those studying other languages such as Spanish and Japanese.
So that was the starting point: languages and intercultural communication.”
An interdisciplinary approach to virtual exchange
“My partner from Batna in Algeria taught agricultural science students with established links to the industry. This inspired us to think how we could bring together a business project connecting their specialism (an agricultural product) and their insight into communication. The idea was quite a simple one really: to market an Algerian agricultural product to the UK market.
It aimed to address issues of how to import the chosen product, how to convince a retailer to stock it, how to market it etc.”
Irène and her partner, Nadia, formed teams of about four to six students – equal numbers from each side. They had five steps they needed to fulfil including the fourth step which consisted in the virtual exchange aspect of the collaboration.
The cultural competence myth
“The module is entitled ‘Cultural competence for the world of work’, and the language students in particular needed to demonstrate they can actually communicate in a foreign language. Not only, but also that they are able to work across cultures. After all, cultural competence, collaboration as well as leadership are the core employability skills that we wanted to make sure our students achieved.”
Irène explains how the students mistakenly think they are better at this than they actually are!
“It’s quite funny, she laughs, “students tend to think – Oh, I’m very good at that. I love going abroad and I love going on holidays. New cultures are very exciting. Therefore they think – my cultural competency is really good.
But what they fail to grasp is the ability of transferring to another place and actually discovering there’s much more that is needed than just nice communication and understanding. Let’s call it the ability to adapt.“
First things first
One of the first things they must do on the module is to undertake an assessment that measures cultural intelligence and cultural values.
“It’s an external survey that the university pays for. The students fill in the survey, and then they get the results – which are often quite surprising! As I mentioned before, they tend to overestimate their interculturality.
We ask them to reflect upon this and quite a lot of learning takes place at this stage and the survey offers quite an insight and gives them a lot to delve into.”
Next phase is the collaboration
“A lot of discussion follows within the module,” Irène continues, ‘and we look at other scholarly case studies such as Edward Hall and Hofstede which encourage ways we can think when we go and work abroad with people from different cultures. It helps us focus on things we need to pay attention to.”
The students are then put into groups for the core project with peers they do not know. This is the phase of the online collaboration which provides them with an authentic setting.”
Irène says some students can get upset when they are unable to control who they are working with. It takes them outside their comfort zone as they have to work with students from other subject areas too, not just from other cultures. But, she doesn’t let them choose – even on the British side – and just goes down the list alphabetically. The same happens on the Algerian side.
“They’re in a group of roughly six, and we try to balance Algerian to British in equal numbers, obviously depending on each. Then, we give them a product. It’s usually oil or dates. The problem for them is that often, the markets are saturated by olive oil from Italy or Spain. So the issue becomes how to penetrate the market with Algerian olive oil.”
Using VE to push boundaries
“At other times, we give them a product they have never heard of, like green wheat! Or saffron. Each product comes with knowledge from the Algerian students – but all must consider challenges to overcome.
Finally, they have to create the output, which is in the form of a poster that supports a campaign. The final task also entails making a five-minute video presentation as a pitch for the product.”
Interesting takeaways from the sequence of tasks
Irène says the first hurdle to overcome is working online and developing social relationships. They know they need to gel as a group in order to succeed. So participants need to spend time getting to know each other before embarking on the series of tasks within the virtual exchange. Irène explains they do one online session together and after that it’s up to them how and when they choose to communicate.
“This is challenging for some students who are used to being told what to do each step of the way.
Not just an online language course
It’s also interesting to see in their reflections that they realise it goes beyond a language exercise. In the breakout rooms, they sometimes use another language to communicate that they have in common. They tried French or Spanish with the Algerian students, and some even understood Arabic. A lot of learning is going on here on many different levels, which is fantastic.”
Some of the students felt the pace of the work was a little on the slow side, says Irène, and they felt frustrated by that.
“It was about adapting to a timeline that works for the Algerians as well as for their own timeline.
Irène says this aspect has made her think about how to overcome these challenges in future iterations, including potential clashes with the muslim Ramadan which may impede those students who celebrate it from working in the evenings. This is something they are left to sort out and it teaches respect for another culture.
“The cultural environment played a crucial role during our exchange, because although most of my students had travelled to Europe, generally none of them had been to Algeria or been exposed to that culture. In fact, a rather nice outcome was that one of my students subsequently decided to go to Morocco for her placement year! !”
Challenges and barriers
For a number of years, Irène has been trying to take the project out of the classroom and into the community by securing the involvement of the farmers, which on the Algerian side, they have been able to do.
Despite her best efforts over in the UK, she has not managed to get interest from any retailers in the products from Algeria. This has been a source of great frustration to her.
“So far I’ve had no luck, she sighs, ‘I’ve tried big companies, smaller companies, chains and they’re not as generous with their time, which is a real frustration for me. It would be a really good addition to the project if I could succeed in that aspect.”
Final thoughts
“If there is one thing I’d say about virtual exchange, it puts the students into a situation where they need to innovate and this means that you never know what you’ll get when you watch their videos. Their creativity can be a real surprise and a real treat!”
At the end of the collaboration, we award them an Open Badge in recognition of their efforts and competencies gained during the project. These are great as they can attach them to their LinkedIn profiles and talk about the skills they gained in future job interviews.”